


A Little Encouragement

by Hankenstein



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Canon Trans Character, M/M, Masturbation, Mentor/Protégé, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 00:50:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3189614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hankenstein/pseuds/Hankenstein
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before the events of Inquisition, Krem is at once horrified and fascinated to overhear the goings-on from Bull's tent. Bull isn't exactly tactful about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Encouragement

**Author's Note:**

> A little porny oneshot. I will get them in bed together... eventually. First I need to set up the dynamic.

There was giggling coming from Bull’s tent.

Giggling, and a low rumble of the chief’s voice. A rounded slapping sound, flesh on flesh, and then that same girlish giggle.

Krem sighed, resigned, and ran the stone over his sword again. Back warm to the fire, he peered out into the darkness so as to not ruin his night vision. His sword was clean, well oiled, the repairs on his armour were well and truly completed, and there was  _still_ at least an hour left on his watch.

Nothing left to do but listen, and he did so with a strange and envious churn to his belly. He tried to concentrate on the sharp slide of the stone, soothing and distracting from the noises coming from Bull’s tent, which were steadily becoming more rhythmic and… wet.

They subsided after a time, and Krem sighed again, perhaps this time in relief.

It was barely a few minutes later when the woman from the tavern re-appeared from the tent, sheepishly catching Krem’s eyes. She was gorgeous, even moreso for the flush in her cheeks and haphazard fall to her hair. Krem couldn’t help but smile as she turned to head back into the town-stead.

“Wait.” Bull pushed back the flap and followed her out. “I’ll walk you.” He’d put on his boots, the brace and his ridiculous striped pants (Krem always thought him and Skinner could probably fit in a leg each with room to spare), but his chest was bare even of the half harness he usually wore. The musculature of his chest was slightly gleaming, tantalizing in the light of the fire as he slung one arm over the young woman’s shoulders.

 _Tantalizing?_ Krem pressed his lips together and swept his stone in a sharp and furious line down his sword, nearly slicing his finger off in the process.

Krem knew you could be attracted to more than one kind of person, more than one species of person. If the parade of characters through Bull’s tent was anything to go by, anyway. Human, men, women, elves… even the occasional dwarf. And hell, half-elves existed. He ought to stop beating himself up over this new-found… admiration for the Chief.

He ought to do a lot of things, he thought angrily.

Bull returned later, settling near Krem, though facing into the warmth of the coals rather than outwards. The young man couldn’t help a sharp intake of breath at the sudden nearness of the Iron Bull. Fuck, he still smelt like sex, like sweat and leather.

“She wanted to go home,” Bull offered by way of explanation. He didn’t need to say the rest; that he didn’t want her to walk home alone.

There were bandits in the woods, and maybe more. Or so they’d been told.

Krem didn’t reply, just kept his eyes out into the darkness, ears and eyes peeled.

“Krem- feel free to tell me to fuck off- but have you ever done it?”

“Done what, Chief?” Krem replied evenly, though his treacherous pulse kicked up a few notches at the question.

“It. Sex. Fucking.” Bull, almost shoulder-to-shoulder with the young man, motioned toward his tent with his diminished hand as he spoke.

Krem shifted, glad to be so diligent in his watch that he faced away from the fire, from Bull, grateful that the burn in his cheeks would be invisible in the darkness.

“I-” he briefly debated lying. There was bluster and bravado aplenty to be had here between them, but the abruptness of the question took him by surprise. And perhaps it was more than that. Perhaps it was also the lack of an audience that had him answering truthfully.

“No, not really. Anyone who knew the truth didn’t seem to- to see me that way. And anyone who didn’t… well.”

Bull didn’t respond, though Krem desperately  _wished_ that he had, because the lieutenant found himself continuing to talk in the face of the Chief’s silence.

“Kissed a few pretty girls in my time, though it never… never got much further.” Kissed a few pretty boys too, though for some reason Krem didn’t mention that.

“Do you bring yourself pleasure?” Bull asked mildly, like he was enquiring about the weather.

Krem had done his best to match Bull for tone, mimicking his casual posture even as he stared out into the darkness, but this time the question well and truly flummoxed him. “I- well-”

Bull let Krem begin about eight different words without managing to turn a single one into a sentence, before he rescued the young man, still with an uncharacteristic levelness for him. “I’ve slept with all sorts. Men, women, aqun-athlok and not. It doesn’t have to be a source of heartache, you know.” He stared into the fire like he hadn’t a care in Thedas as he spoke

“I- what?” Krem resisted the urge to put his face in his hands. One, they were covered in sword oil, and two, that was the opposite of keeping his cool.

“What you’ve got between your legs. Doesn’t have to be all pain and torture.” Bull grinned to himself, as though thinking a secret thought, just for him.

Krem glanced over. Shoulder to shoulder, he couldn’t help but make eye contact with Bull, and he wondered what the qunari saw there in his face. Confusion? Envy?

Lust?

Krem swallowed, and looked away, trying not to give signs of the swirling in his gut, the different effect that Bull’s voice seemed to have on him when quiet and rumbling by the fire rather than screamed across a battlefield.

This was just Bull being Bull, surely. Looking out for him in that way that Krem at once loathed and loved. That perfect balance between offering and asking, helping without pushing. Bull was just adding another category to the pile of things he already was helping Krem with, wasn’t he? That was all, Krem told himself sharply. Just Bull. The timing of it had nothing to do with this curiosity he found himself nursing, perhaps listening a little too closely to the sounds of Bull’s recent romps through the canvas of their tents.

Krem’s face still burned with the desperate need for this conversation to be  _over_ , so he could no longer worry that Bull could hear his elevated heart-rate, feel the heart radiating off his face.

“Anyway. You should give it a go, if you don’t already,” Bull said, taking Krem’s obvious discomfort in his stride. The huge man stood, fetching his axe from where he’d left it by the tent, clapping Krem on the shoulder as he returned. “Consider yourself relieved.”

Krem considered himself so, in more ways than one. He speedily packed up his repair gear, and all but fled to his tent.

Inside, Krem rapidly went to work on the buckles of his armour, mind rattling. Pauldrons and gauntlets went into the corner, unbuckling his belt and letting the chain pool on the ground.

Krem never really bothered with the binder under the plate mail. Between the solid front of the ironically named breast plate, and the fact he didn’t have that much of a chest anyway these days, he didn’t need it. Perhaps that was why he liked his life as a soldier and now a mercenary so much. Some days it felt like the armour fit better than his skin did. He unbuckled the breast plate and added it to the pile.

Bull’s words were ringing in his ears as he reached his underclothes, and Krem slowed his rapid disrobing to take a moment just to breathe.

Krem would be lying if he said there wasn’t a throb between his legs, a heaviness that demanded to be lifted, to be touched. He was aqun-athlok (if there was a word for it Tevene he’d never learnt it) not dumb, and though Bull’s question had caught him off guard, he knew his own body.

 _Doesn’t have to be a source of heartache,_ he thought to himself grimly. Well, perhaps there was some merit to that thought after all.

Ache or no, there were things to be taken care of first. Sword went by the bedroll, boots by the door. If Iron Bull called out, he could be armed and out the door in seconds. It was an old habit, solid training. At least with the Chargers he didn’t have to worry about concealing his chest before answering the call of a soldier on watch.

With an irritated grumble, he dropped to his knees and slid into his bedroll. Curled up on his side, he pressed a hand between his legs, against his cunt, still over his pants, breath catching.

He was being stupid about this. And stubborn. He was quite sure if he went to Bull, the qunari would fuck him. Or do… whatever Krem wanted, really. He wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted.

 _But he’s my commander,_ a small part of his brain offered as an excuse, hand still firm against his cunt, squeezing his thighs tight over his fingers. The more rational part of him was already scoffing. Just because  _he’d_  spent years in the Imperium’s forces, didn’t mean the rest of the Chargers had, and they were as far from a traditional military unit as you could get. There weren’t exactly fraternization rules in place.

Krem was pretty sure Stitches had taken advantage of Bull’s open tent policy on more than one occasion, not to mention Skinner and Dalish shared a tent these days. It was easy to see that regardless of what games the Chargers played in bed, it didn’t compromise anyone’s position in the field. 

He rolled onto his back, and slipped his seeking hand inside his smalls. Maker, he was wet, and slick, and he bit his cheek to stop him from crying out, spreading the slick from his centre around, exploring and teasing. If Krem could hear the not-so-subtle noises of a romp from Bull’s tent through the canvas walls, the reverse would be true too, he told himself sharply.

So he willed his breath to silence, as he cast his mind back to earlier, the sounds of Bull fucking the woman from the tavern, the base slapping sounds of flesh on flesh, the wet rhythm of it. Krem’s mind helpfully filled in the blanks. What would it feel like to have those hands on him, instead of her? He flushed and felt his stomach clench in arousal at the thought.

He pressed firm, slick fingers to the apex of his slit, and whimpered as the sensation shot straight to the base of his skull

He was being  _stupid_ about this, making excuses, again, using fear to stop himself from taking something that would be so easy, so simple. This wasn’t Tevinter. He didn’t have to hide. And what did he have to hide from Bull? Nothing.

 _But… commander_ , said that pathetic dissenting voice, the well-trained soldier who would never think to proposition a commanding officer. As he felt himself pulse with lust at the thought, he came to another realization. Perhaps the whole  _chief_ thing was part of the appeal.

He was too hot in his clothes, under his bedroll. He kicked the blankets down, shuffled out of his breeches, field readiness be damned. Bull could handle any assailants for the few minutes more that it would take Krem to get his pants back on. He let his thighs fall open, air just chilled enough to be a shock against his hot skin, and he could  _smell_ his own arousal. He was hot and ashamed and nervy about how much that turned him on.

Perhaps it was the  _commander_ thing, the fact that Bull had all but offered his guidance, in his infuriating way. Perhaps it was the way that without even asking, Krem knew he could give himself up to Bull’s hands, to Bull’s experience, to Bull’s cock, and the qunari would know what to do in a way that Krem did not, had never…

He rubbed a tight circle over those singing nerves, and dipped his fingers lower as he thought about it, two fingers sliding inside himself easily, pressing his other hand over his mouth and his head hard into the ground as he curled those fingers inside.

Maker, but apparently listening to those two had  _turned him on._

He sobbed, barely catching the noise this time as he fucked himself on his fingers, rutting ever so slightly against his hand, other hand dropping from his mouth to his slit to keep rubbing those tight, slick circles. He was going to draw blood from biting his cheek this hard as the sensation swelled, cheekbones to toes buzzing, hot and insistent.

 _Doesn’t have to be a source of heartache,_ Bull’s voice rumbled and  _fuck_  Krem knew that, didn’t need to be told but it was so damn good to  _hear,_ to have permission like that from someone whom he trusted, who  _knew him._ Krem could trust Bull with his life, from the beginning. He knew, when he wasn’t being fearful and making excuses, that he could trust him with so much more.

He added a third finger, angle awkward as the wet thrust of his fingers became more frantic, but he didn’t care, couldn’t think straight. How could anything that felt like this be a heartache? It was  _his body_ and he loved it, loved that it could make him feel like this.

He thought of Bull’s hands, the rich potential of being under Bull’s command in more ways than one. 

 _Cremisius Aclassi you are being so fucking stupid about this, all you’ve got to do is ask._ The thought briefly rang clear as a bell. As the waves of pleasure crested and broke he thought of his trusted friend, his chief, the beast of a man whispering _come for me, Krem_ and that he did, sobbing through his bitten lip.

He splayed out his limbs, breathing hard, thinking that now would be a really excellent time for someone to ambush their campsite. Hopefully the others would be ready to handle it, because he needed a moment or twenty.

Out by the fire, the Iron Bull leant on the head of his axe and smirked with something that was almost like pride.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope it’s clear from the text that Bull isn’t like, creepily grooming Krem or anything. That’s totally not where I’m going with this. More than Bull just genuinely thinks everyone should get to have and enjoy sex and wants to help in any way if Krem still has hang ups about it. 
> 
> Also, I’m a cis woman. I really hope I’m not fucking up by stretching my writing smut to a trans man. If you have thoughts I’d really love to hear them. [ Commander Diomika ](http://commander-diomika.tumblr.com/) is my tumblr.


End file.
